


Relevance

by Fragged



Category: Stargate Universe
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-01
Updated: 2015-03-01
Packaged: 2018-03-15 00:09:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3430610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fragged/pseuds/Fragged
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rush wasn't on Novus, but that doesn't mean he was forgotten.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Relevance

**Author's Note:**

> [Coda to 2.18 'Epilogue'.]

“Hey,” Eli says, and he's using that soft intonation that means he's trying to be careful with him. Rush loathes it on principle and refuses to respond. 

“I, uh, I thought you might wanna see this,” Eli says, and puts a USB stick on the little metal table. “You should watch it.” 

Rush doesn't deign to answer. Instead he keeps staring at his ceiling, hoping that will bring an end to this invasion of privacy. 

And lo, Eli finally gets the message. “Alright, I'll see you later, then.” 

Then he's gone, and Rush purposefully ignores the memory stick. Instead he rolls over so that he's facing the wall, and stares at nothing until sleep claims him. 

-

Two days later his curiosity gets the better of him, and he inserts the USB stick into his laptop. There's a single video file on it. 

Fantastic. 

It's either more footage from Novus, and he really can't be bothered with that; or it's Eli's latest installment of his documentary, which, again, Rush has neither the time nor the patience for. 

Still, he opens the file. 

It's Eli, as an older man, speaking into the camera. Novus then.

 _“We didn't find these recordings until after...”_ he clears his throat. His eyes are red and puffy. _“Until after Young died. I think they're important, especially with the rising political tensions between us and Futura.”_

The next shot is of Young, not as an old man, but the way he is now. There's a scrape on his forehead, and it looks like he's sitting under an overhanging rock ledge of some sort. It's completely quiet. He's alone, looking down at his hands, before he starts talking to the camera. 

_“I... I should have listened to Rush. It's my fault we're here. It's my fault that he's dead. That David's probably dead, too. I should've listened to him when he warned me it wasn't safe. I should've...”_

He swallows thickly, and looks into the camera with an anguished expression. Oh God, he's on the verge of tears. Rush feels like he's violating Young's trust for a quick second, before pushing it down. 

_“I should've stayed behind. It should've been me, not him. He died saving everyone's lives. Saving my life. And I can't...”_

The Young on the screen looks back down at his hands, and Rush is reasonably sure he sees a tear streak down his face before his hand comes up to rub over his eyes. 

_“I'm sorry.”_

The recording stops there, and something else starts playing. Rush wonders vaguely if he should stop watching this; he's not sure why Eli gave it to him in the first place, but he knows Young would hate for Rush to see him like this. 

He keeps watching. 

The camera floats over a grassy knoll. Every now and then, trees rise high into the sky, their leaves creating dappling shadows that sway slightly with the wind. The sound of boots walking through high grass is all the indication that anyone's there. Rush would recognize those footsteps anywhere. It's Young, of course. 

Suddenly, a stone marker comes into view. The kino keeps floating closer, until it comes to a stop in front of it. It's a tombstone, clear and simple. Engraved on it, in a surprisingly neat and steady font, is “Dr. Nich”. 

Finally he gets a glimpse of Young, as he sits down in front of the stone. He takes a hammer and an improvised chisel – it looks like it might have been a screwdriver in a past life – and continues working on the letter 'h'. 

After a minute or two, he says, _“Rush probably would've thought this is sentimental and a complete waste of time.”_

Then he goes back to working on the stone, and after another minute the screen goes dark. 

Another scene, and this time Young is working on the letter 'u'. 

_“Eli seems to think David could've made it through to Earth. Brody believes Rush is still out there. That he'll come back for us. I don't know if it's possible, but I hope it's true. I hope they're both still alive somewhere. I hope David made it to Earth. I hope Rush is still on Destiny.”_

He continues chiseling the stone with intense concentration for another minute, before he turns back to the camera. His face is somber and withdrawn. 

_“I hope that at some point I'll stop wishing I could go back to that day.”_

Rush wants to think something unkind. Always a day late and a dollar short; isn't that the Americanism, Colonel? But his heart isn't in it, and all it does is make him feel slightly guilty. 

The next scene shows Young finishing up the last number, the second '0' in 2010, and when he's done, he looks at the camera. His hair is longer, Rush hasn't ever seen it this long, and the bags under his eyes are mostly gone. 

_“It's been almost a year since we came here,”_ Young says. _“I don't know, most of it is pretty good. I'm... I'm happy here, for the first time in a long while.”_

He looks down then, huffs out a breath in something that both seems amused and not, and lets his fingers run over the engraved letters in the stone. 

_“I kind of miss him.”_

Rush pauses the recording, and frowns. On the monitor in front of him, Young's hand is still over the 'R' in his name. His face is twisted in a mournful smile, and for some reason it hurts to look at that expression. 

Young missed him? 

Making him a headstone, that is something he can understand. Granted, he does think it's sentimental and a waste of time, but he can understand it if Young felt guilty for surviving when Rush went down with the ship. When Rush saved his life. Remembering him might feel like penance, that much he can fathom. But _missing_ him? That's unexpected. 

He wonders if it is a case of 'absence makes the heart grow fonder', or if Young actually felt like this before they dialed the star. 

All of it had been slightly confusing, when he thinks back on that day. That future version of him... he'd only been a few hours older, but he'd been different. He'd noticed it first when the other Rush had been so obviously irritated with him, even though he must've known Rush was just deflecting, using his callous comments as a way to keep the others from seeing how deeply disturbed he was by the whole ordeal. 

But that glance the other version of him had cast Young; that warm, grateful, fucking look, _that_ had been the real clincher. Rush would never look at Young that way, no matter how unexpectedly satisfying Young's decision to stay behind on the ship with him had been. 

What had that future version of him figured out that he hasn't? 

He looks at the image on his screen again and contemplates watching the rest of the video. Then he closes his laptop and goes to the bridge. He has more pressing matters to attend to than watching what happened to someone who, as far as he's concerned, he doesn't even know. 

-

Still, later that night, he finds himself opening his laptop again. The video starts up where he left off, with Young's fingertips caressing his name in the stone, and Rush looks on uncomfortably as Young makes eye contact with the camera for a few seconds before turning sideways to gaze out over the grass and the trees. 

_“He was a lot of work, but in hindsight, I think he may have been the closest thing I had to a friend on that ship.”_

He huffs out another breath in time with Rush's disbelieving snort. 

_“Well, maybe friend is not the right word.”_

Rush kind of wants to know what would be the right word, then, but Young stares off into the distance, and a minute later the image fades into black again. 

In the next scene, Young looks different. His hair is shorter again, and he looks tired but content. He's sitting next to the gravestone, and Rush nearly rolls his eyes at the neatly tied flowers at the foot of it. 

_“Yesterday it was exactly two years since we came here. Eli and Chloe insisted we do something to celebrate. It was nice, and it's good for morale that we're making our own traditions here. We're starting to feel like a real community. It's good. We're happy, mostly. Stephen is becoming a real handful, and TJ is due next month for our second one.”_

Young smiles down at his hands. 

_“I know none of this would've been possible without Rush, and I'm grateful. I don't find myself wishing we were still all aboard Destiny that often anymore. But I do wish he was here. He would've hated most of it, I guess, but...”_ he trails off, and looks out over the field. 

Then he gives a little half shrug, and stands up. 

_“Eli and Chloe are going to be here soon. I think this might become tradition, too.”_

Rush watches as Young reaches for the kino to deactivate it, and then wonders why this is getting to him. Why it matters that a Young he never met is mourning a Rush who isn't even really him, because it shouldn't. It never happened, not in any way that matters to Rush now. 

He doesn't have time to consider his answer for long, because then Young is on the screen again, and Rush feels his heart clench unexpectedly at how terrible he looks. He's older now, his hair is starting to streak with gray, and the lines in his face are more pronounced. But it's his eyes that draw and hold Rush's attention like a magnet. They're dark, and tired, and hollow, like he's lost a piece of himself. Rush recognizes that look instantly. 

He knows what happened to Lieutenant Johansen, of course. Everyone knows. They didn't have any chance of helping her, stuck on that rock, with barely any technology or medical resources at their disposal. 

Rush watches quietly as Young rubs a hand over his forehead. Young lets out a deep sigh, and for some reason it leaves Rush feeling vaguely guilty again. 

_“It's been eight years since we came here. Yesterday, it was. We didn't celebrate this year. It's too soon—”_ he cuts off, and Rush feels an uncomfortable crawling sensation in his stomach as Young breaks down. 

There's something terrible about the way he cries, tears streaking down his cheeks and face contorted in pain, but without any sound at all. The whole thing is made even more unbearable by the way he leans against Rush's headstone. As if Young is trying to find solace in the reminder of someone who was never even his friend in life. 

Rush looks away then, finally. This was a mistake. He never should have opened that video file. Because he doesn't want to know this about Young. He doesn't want to feel sympathy for him over something that never happened. He doesn't want to feel like he's keeping this secret for him. Because that's not the kind of intimacy they share, not unless it's mixed with anger and pain and violence. 

The screen goes dark, and stays dark for a long time, and with a breath of relief Rush thinks that means that the video is over, that this is it. But then there is some muffled noise and the image shakes a bit, and he realizes Young simply covered up the camera with his hand, that he's trying to pull himself together, and when he enters the picture again, his face looks passive and blank. It's still obvious he's been crying, but the expression on his face embodies that stoicism he both hates and perversely admires in the man. 

_“The kids are alright. They miss her, but they're coping. We're all coping.”_

That's enough. Rush closes his laptop and pushes it aside. He has to... He wants to get out of here. Out of his quarters that suddenly feel too small, too cramped. Claustrophobic, even. 

Ten minutes later, he finds himself in the observation deck. It's been downright crowded during the days, now that the Novus people are boarding with them. But it's late, and there's only one couple in there, holding hands and talking in low murmurs. They scurry away quickly when they see him, and he scoffs at the ridiculous superstition of these people. 

A demon. Right. 

“Scaring the locals again?” Young's voice comes from behind him, low and rumbling and full of ill-concealed amusement. 

And for some reason Rush is relieved. Because this is the Young he knows, this is _his_ Young. This Young doesn't cry, or make him headstones, or _miss_ him when he's gone, and that's better. More familiar. Easier. 

“Doesn't take much with this lot,” he says, without turning his head away from the colorful display of the FTL trails through the window. 

Young leans against the railing next to him, silent. Looming and distracting, even if the distance between their hands is more than half a meter. 

“Can't sleep?” he asks after a few quiet minutes have passed. 

It's a simple question, but it's oddly personal, and that's not something they _do_. They've managed to achieve a reasonably functional working relationship, but they don't have any experience getting personal unless there's blood and betrayal involved. 

Somehow this feels more dangerous.

“You made me a headstone on Novus,” Rush says accusingly. Because he doesn't back down in the face of danger, and he certainly doesn't back down in the face of Young. 

“Oh.” Young looks slightly surprised by the change in subject, but not necessarily by the information itself. “Well, that makes sense.” 

“Does it?” 

Young hums in agreement, but doesn't elaborate. Fine. If Young wants to be an uncooperative bastard, Rush can be the inquisitive one. 

“What about you, then? Can't sleep?” he parrots Young's question back at him. 

Young's face pulls into a wistful smile that reminds Rush all too much of the man on his laptop screen, and he turns back to staring out the observation window. 

“Lot to think about,” Young says distantly. 

“It wasn't real, Colonel,” Rush snaps. And he doesn't know why this is winding him up, but it irritates him how much stock everyone is putting in this little alternate version of history that should have absolutely no bearing on any of their lives other than the fact that the mess hall is now even more of a jam-packed hell hole than usual. 

Young gives him a look that says he thinks he knows something about Rush that Rush doesn't know himself, and he feels his annoyance flare into anger. Fuck this, it was a mistake to come here. He pushes back from the railing and makes for the exit. 

“If it wasn't real, then why do you care that I made you a headstone?” Young calls after him. 

“You _didn't_ , and I don't,” Rush says snidely, turning on his heel. “Some alternate version of you tried to remember some alternate version of me; it has no impact on either one of us at all.” Forget I said anything, he would add, if he didn't know that'd be a surefire way to achieve the exact opposite. 

Young's face kind of softens then, and Rush isn't sure how aggravated he should be by the understanding flooding over Young's features. 

“I doubt he had any trouble remembering you, Rush. You're pretty hard to forget.” 

It sounds like insult and compliment wrapped into one, and it awakens a number of conflicting emotions in Rush. Young is too good at drawing those out in him, and a deep-seated instinct tells him he should take that for the warning it is. 

“Right,” he says, and if his voice is a bit snippy, Young doesn't comment on it. “Well, fascinating as this conversation has been, I'm off to bed now.” 

Young gives him a look that is both exasperated and amused, before turning his back to Rush and observing the rest of the galaxy again. “Goodnight, Rush.” 

The entire way back to his quarters Rush feels as if he just had a huge row with Young. Except it isn't anger that's coursing through his veins. Not exactly. 

Once again, he feels like he's missing something. Like his future self had known something he doesn't, and he hates this. He hates not understanding. 

When he gets to his room, he yanks the memory stick out of his laptop and tosses it into a corner. 

A week later, he picks it up, dusts it off lightly, and hides it at the bottom of his dresser. He doesn't open it again, but he doesn't throw it away, either. 

The fact that he still doesn't understand scratches at his mind like a taunt, vexing, and irritates him for weeks. 

-

Later – technically, _years_ later – Rush finally does understand; puzzle pieces slotting together to illuminate a blind spot he'd never dared to investigate closely. But by then Young is biting at his neck, pressing him up against a bulkhead, and fumbling with his belt. And really, Rush decides, at that point he has other things to focus on.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [ this](http://euticphicl.deviantart.com/art/SGU-Grave-217701369) beautiful piece of fanart, by [EuticphicL](http://euticphicl.deviantart.com/).


End file.
